Chizuru Nagahara vs. Blade Uehara - One More Reunion

For a moment, Chizuru felt naked in the middle of the ring after she managed to reacquaint Blade with the turnbuckles, and she honestly didn’t know why. The body slam went better than she thought it would. Blade didn’t manage to avoid it like she had the suplex, and it was clear from how she was hurting that her technique hadn’t lost its edge during her break. So where was this nagging feeling coming from?

Maybe it was because, for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t sure if Rei was watching her. If Mika was. If anyone was, aside from her parents. Maybe it was because she knew that no one would be waiting for her backstage to tell her how awesome that slam was. How impressive it was that she was keeping her cool and managed to put Blade of all people on the defense early on.

But she had to get over that. She wanted to make it out here on her own, and that was just what she was going to do. Full speed ahead, Nagahara. Full speed ahead.

The cheers from the crowd were all the motivation she was going to need right now. She looked out at them with a pair of raised eyebrows, slowly growing a small grin as she gave them a couple light fist pumps in return before turning her attention back to the Aerial Artist. The body slam didn’t seem to be agreeing with her if the way she was grudging about over the middle rope was anything to go by. The Suplex Savant clearly hadn't lost her spark, but if she was being honest, the corner wasn’t really her territory either. Too close, too compact, too many bad memories of a shoulder charge that went wrong. Blade was off of her, so Chizuru was more than happy to fulfill her request as her face lit up, a bright smile overtaking her features.

“Okay!” She said with a chipper tone.

With Blade slumped over the rope and her back fully exposed to her, she should have been able to tell what was about to happen even before Chizuru’s hands came down to clamp around the aerialist’s waist. If that wasn’t enough to clue her in though, the way in which Chizuru went to yank her up to her feet and have her face the corner probably would be.

Once she forced Blade up to two feet, she’d do what came name natural and hoist her fellow Angel up while arching her back, going to bring her down with a German Suplex. However, she’d put a bit more height into this one than usual, bringing herself up to her tippy-toes as she attempted to bring the tomboy out of the corner and slam her into the canvas, bridging her body and immediately going for a pin attempt.

Blade had several preconceived ideas for how she thought this match was going to start out. Including but not limited to her just springing a surprise finisher on Chizu and moon-walking back up the ramp before the audience members who went to get their over-priced beer could even maneuver their way back to their seats. Not that she thought so little of Chizu's skills that she figured it would be that much of a cakewalk. It was more a combination of her own cocky hubris towards any of her opponents, and those clear mental flashbacks she had of Chizu just being a klutzy goofball who had a damn good suplexing game...but not someone to ACTUALLY take seriously amongst her championship level, and some would say "elitist", colleagues.

Well...as Blade groggily slung her head over the middle rope after having been bounced off the middle turnbuckles twice in succession now...and having earned precisely bupkis in terms of any offensive headway...she could safely say it was time to start updating the old memory banks to classify Chizuru under the Don't Underestimate category. She just really wished she could have come to this conclusion while watching Chizu slam someone else around from the snug safety of her comfy sofa back in her apartment.

But right now Blade was rattled and could use a quick second to compose herself. It wasn't so much the slam into the turnbuckle that left her seeing stars as much so it was the sharp drop back down to the canvas. That hurt like a bitch, and was what led to her muttering bitterly to herself with some dry humor. Something to make light of how ridiculous it was for the diehard veteran to be getting her ass handed to her by the third member of the three idiots from way back in W.A. But it wasn't until she heard Chizuru's jovial affirmation from behind that she lifted her head to stare wide-eyed and rapidly think to herself...

*I'vemadeaterriblemistake...*

Everything that came next all just felt like a seamless blur of fluid motions. The tightened constriction around her waist, the unnaturally swift upheaval back to her feet, and the half a second for Blade to cuss one more time before being tossed overhead and straight down to her shoulders for a perfectly implemented Chizu-syle German Suplex. The booming completion of the suplex leaving Blade stunned and in the awkward position of being folded over herself with her pert butt in the air, and it also coaxed a resounding "One!" from the audience who had gotten into the habit of counting the number of suplexes Chizu could pull off in a single match.

"One!"

But it was the referee's count that Blade concerned herself with. One of her eyes still open as she dramatically kicked her legs skyward and shifted her weight to the side just before the "Two!" count. She aimed to roll over and attempt to drunkenly fumble back to her knees, Blade not appreciating the early pin attempt as she shot Chizu a wincing scowl while cradling the back of her head.

"Not...what I meant..."

Aw yeah. Back in business.

Her first German Suplex in months. Wow, everything felt so surreal the moment after that hit. The move went off without a hitch and flowed like water, crashing the Okinawan into the canvas. She didn’t have any doubt that she could pull it off, not with all the muscle memory she had worked up. It was just weird finally doing it again. That was probably part of the reason why Blade was able to get away from her before the second count. No biggie, though. Still plenty of match to go.

All she knew for sure was that it felt good. She wanted to do more. Way more.

Right now, though, her mind was just cobbling together what she could remember from her time back in WA and all the between now and then. Gotta be quick, gotta be aggressive. Pin early, pin often. Pace yourself and work with the momentum, not against it. If slamming once doesn't work, slam, slam, and slam again. Rei taught her that last one. It was probably what got her win ratio out of the dumps and saved her from an early retirement more than a few times. Hopefully, that strategy would still work today.

She rolled onto all fours and began to rise alongside the Okinawan in time to catch the glare she was throwing her from across the ring. Chizuru matched her with a coy little smile, despite the words that accompanied it. She had a feeling that wasn't exactly what Blade wanted. She should have gone with the release suplex.

“Well...” Her eyes popped open for a moment, scratching the side of her head with a pair of puckered lips. “I can put you back in it if you want.” There was no such thing as being too helpful, right?

She’d let Blade make up her mind about that. In the meantime, Chizuru figured it would be good to at least get set for whatever decision she made. Having risen up to both feet, the Suplex Girl would drop into stance with her arms wide and move to close the distance between the two. Then, with a lunge forward, she’d try to wrap her arms tight around Blade and wrench her into a crushing bearhug.

Yeah, Yeah...Blade knew she quite literally had been asking for it. And this wasn't the first time she ended up paying dearly for letting one word too many slip from her big mouth. For better or worse, Blade was always the type to wear her emotions on her sleeves. This usually ended up being for the worse considering her tendency towards telling like it is and trash-talking people who she thought deserved it. Even if they dwarfed her in size, muscle, and everything else that made it easy for them to fling her across a wrestling ring.

So for now she wasn't really all that pissed off at Chizu...but that was also mainly because she was too busy putting all of her energy towards standing up straight after being suplexed by someone who's practically perfected the damn move. Having made a career out of being pitched across the ring by women stronger than her meant that Blade had the endurance to shake off the disorientation well enough. But starting out a match by being suplexed by Chizu Nagahara was just a bad beat altogether. And it was an uptick in her momentum that Blade needed to quash immediately.

"I...I still can't tell if you're joking or not..." Blade muttered with a blank, deadpanned expression through her half-lidded eyes. Between this, and Chizu's earlier snippet about slamming as hard as Beauty, Blade still couldn't decipher if Chizu was talking smack...or was just that wholesomely innocent, naive, and dense towards what she was saying. And was ACTUALLY asking if Blade wanted to be chucked back into the corner turnbuckle.

Questions for another time.

Because Chizuru than started approaching her once more with a widened grappling stance. The earlier suplexing shenanigans left Blade a little too rattled to put her speed to any good use, so the Aerial Artist stood her ground and approached as well with her own grappling stance...except not with the intention of grappling. By leaping up, tucking her legs in, and folding her hands behind the suplexer's head, all of Chizu's forward momentum would be used against her as Blade rolled back and executed a monkey flip. Blade shooting her legs out into her opponent's abdomen for a bit more extra hang-time in the flipping process.

Despite a good chunk of the crowd shouting their encouragement behind her, Chizuru was no less nervous now as she was when she started things out. On one hand, she was feeling pretty good about nailing that German. She’d done her best to not lose her edge while she spent time thinking her career over. Training never quite measured up to the real deal, but so far things were looking up.

On the other hand, it was up to her now to keep that momentum going. Not something she always did with confidence, even less against opponents more nimble than her. That match against Chisato still stood out in her mind when the stoic put her in an octopus stretch out of nowhere. Far from her finest moment, but one she didn’t intend to recreate here today. She did her best to keep it together though. Still plenty of match to go.

Her focus was still squarely on Blade as she went to close the distance now that she had the initiative. As bull-headed as Chizuru could be at times, even she didn’t need a reminder of certain things. The opening moments of this very match quickly replayed in front of her eyes as she suddenly found herself in the same position. Blade may have been able to outmaneuver her, but if the Suplex Girl never gave her a chance to use that agility, there would be nothing to worry about.

Not until Blade gave her something to worry about, that was. She’d assumed the Okinawan would still too busy shaking off her suplex to be able to outmaneuver what came next. That assumption would end up costing her. She thought she had her for a second when she saw the aerialist adopt a grappling stance, only Chizuru was the one being baited. She grunted as a pair of boots slammed into her gut, her eyes growing the size of dinner plates as her feet were taken off the ground.

Letting out a slight yelp, at a bit of a higher pitch than she would have liked, Chizuru flipped like a flapjack through the air, kicking her arms and legs around like a madwoman as she soared. She crashed hard on her back and immediately arched her spine, putting a hand behind her to dull the stinging pain running up and down her hide. The shock of it all was still working through her, but she knew she had to at the very least get back up. With a push to the side, Chizuru rolled to her front and brought herself onto all fours. Well, three, since one hand was still nursing her back. A back that was growing a nice shade of red. Even so, she went to bring herself onto one knee, trying to get up to both feet as quickly as she could.

Straight up grappling with Chizuru was a tremendously painful and...educational, experience that the Okinawan was not intent on relearning anytime soon. Blade still had the backaches and head pains from what happened the last time she tried to out-muscle and outmaneuver the suplexing savante once they were locked into a grappling stance. One slam lead to another and another and it honestly felt like Blade had been put into a suplexing roller-coaster that she felt lucky to escape from before the ride started reaching it's apex.

Still, Blade banked on Chizu assuming the Okinawan hadn't learned from her early mistake and was just stubbornly stepping up to the plate once more and didn't have a nefarious counter hidden up her non-existent sleeve. In an oddly coincidental way, Blade was now hoping for Chizuru to be the one underestimating her this time around. But being someone of Blade's size, who was frequently throwing down with ladies twice her muscle mass, meant learning how to counter balance momentum and turning all of that offensive velocity around on her opponents. And in this case to hilarious results from Chizu's wild-armed flailing, yelping scream, and the fact that she was airborne for a solid second or two there.

"Sorry Chizu, no more hugging tonight..." Blade snarkily uttered after rolling to her side and beginning her upward ascension. She avoided what she assumed to be another bearhug given how wide apart Chizu's arms were, and one she was intent on not reliving for the sake of her poor spine. Blade was now back on her feet and anxiously tapping one of her heels in the canvas while scanning the ring in fidgeting anticipation. She was feeling those competitive juices flowing that had her contemplating where to go from here in her lightning fast thought processing. Blade was still too rattled from the earlier German to take to the sky just yet, but not enough to hamper her foot speed.

Blade took off sprinting towards the ropes behind her only to turn in place, bounce right off them, and come dashing back on a collision course towards the German suplex machine. The Aerial Artist planned everything out as best she could, including the speed at which Chizu should be groggily rising back up about this time. And if her calculations were correct Chizu would be in the perfect position for Blade to jump up with her arm extended outward for what looked to be a lariat, but would transition into a Sling Blade takedown after spinning in place around Chizu's shoulders with her neck hooked in Blade's arm as she collapsed to the floor.

How did people like Blade have the courage to do something as risky and crazy dangerous and downright scary as this every single day? That was the one question that lingered in Chizuru’s mind as she went soaring through the air, and continued to linger well after her back had collided with the ground.

Despite how she’d decided to train for her career in professional wrestling, and the path she’d stuck to since her days as a fresh-faced nobody from the mountains of Gunma, Chizuru had always held some respect for the high-flyers of Wrestle Angels, even for those that likely didn’t really deserve it now that she thought on it. Aerialists were more or less the image of wrestling, the thing everybody thinks of when the topic comes to mind. They were strong, entertaining, and courageous all at once. For a time, she even considered adding a few aerial moves to her a skillset, but couldn’t exactly remember the reason why she decided to drop it.

Blade, however, did a very good job at kick-starting her memory.

It was far from the first time someone had tripped her up with the monkey flip, but it hadn’t made the landing any softer either. It was a slow ascent for Chizuru, and the suplex master knew it fully well, but there was no fighting her own body when it needed to recover. This was a dangerous spot to be in, especially against someone as bullish and nimble as Blade Uehara. She’d manage to rise up from one knee, going to stand up to two feet hopefully in time to evade whatever the aerialist’s stomping feet were bringing her way. By the time she looked up, however, Blade had already gone to put a hard stop on the brunette’s plans with a capital ‘S’.

An arm smashed against Chizuru’s throat, knocking the air swiftly out of her with her eyes growing to the size of dinner plates as she fell back, swept right off her feet. The back of her head smashed against the ground hard enough to make it bounce back, the rest of her body flopping overhead like a fish yanked out of water as it chased after her head, landing flat on the ground belly-first. A collective ‘oooh’ made its way around the arena at the spectacle, the ring ropes shaking and floor trembling as the hard-headed Wrestle Angel was forcefully splayed out on the floor. There the Suplex Girl laid for a moment, face down on the ground with the steady rise and fall of her back as her lungs filled again with air second by second.

The most the German suplex machine could manage after the harsh takedown was a slight push onto her side, rolling over quickly onto her front. If she there was going to be a follow up to the Okinawan’s attack, she’d at least want to see it coming, even if she couldn’t really do anything to about it. It was also a bit easier to breathe without her face on the floor, even if the stage lights were a bit blinding. She brought a hand to the back of her head as she rolled over, the painful thumping going on inside of it making moving a bit difficult. A thought came to her mind the next moment. “I...I wanna...go back to hugging…”

Whether she was speaking to herself or to Blade, that was for the Buddha to decide. Chizuru, for her part, wouldn’t be making any decisions anytime soon.

Blade's affinity for scaling to perilous heights and her general thrill-seeking inclination had just always been a core facet of her personality ever since she was a scrappy youth and practically for as long as she could remember. All to the stressful chagrin of her gruff but doting father whenever he brought them to the bustling park near her house, where he would always be clamping onto his head in panic whenever he found his 6-year old daughter trying to do handstands on the top bar of the highest jungle gym or had climbed something in the park not meant to be climbed. A shiver of dread going down his spine whenever he heard Kyouko ask him from afar..."Hey Dad, come look what I can do!!!"

So fast, loose, and dangerous was how Blade honed her wrestling style, and this uptick in the speedy tempo of the match was the perfect atmosphere to stage her comeback after being Chizuru's suplexing test dummy. Blade was used to monkey-flipping girls way bigger than Chizuru back in the day, so the suplexing savante had gotten major air time considering she weighed way less than any of the muscled giants of Wrestle Angel. And in her bid to keep the momentum going, Blade dashed back towards Chizu and hooked her neck into the crook of her arm. The spiraling twist to her sling blade giving her multiple mid-air rotations before she landed on her backside and in considerably better shape than her hug-friendly adversary. Running and gunning with a whirlwind offensive of agility based takedowns was just what Blade was best at. Besides...it's not like she was going to be dead-lifting Chris Morgan for a stalled brainbuster or gorilla pressing Dark Star Chaos anytime soon.

*WhatnowWhatnowWhatnowWhatnow*

Blade's mind was already running a mile a minute after propping herself up to a seated position, the Aerial Artist feverishly scanning the ring and assessing what she could do now that she had finally wrestled back control of the match. The audience rallying behind the Okinawan Eagle once more now that she was showing signs of life and putting on the fast-paced show that made her a perennial fan-favorite to watch...even if she was technically the instigator in some of her feuds. But lightning struck her scruffy-haired head when she spotted Chizu in no man's land. Sprawled out and a good five feet from the nearest turnbuckle...

Her cheering fans clearly had the same idea once they witnessed her face light up like Christmas tree with a devilish smirk. Blade shuffled back to her feet and bee-lined it right towards that corner turnbuckle while brushing some hair out of her line of sight...and she just couldn't resist the urge to step on Chizu's pert rump on her way their either. Her nimble ascension up the ropes heightened the booming anticipation of the audience as Blade perched herself atop the turnbuckle before steadily turning in place for what the telltale movements before busting out her trademark finisher, Blade's Edge...

People tended to underestimate Blade. Sounded funny, but it was true. Chizuru had been the underdog of their previous promotion long enough to recognize that glint of hubris in people’s eyes whenever she stepped into the ring. She saw more than a few people giving Blade that look in the past, and it made the brows on the German native clench with irritation every time. Not that the Aerial Artist needed Chizuru’s pity to prove her adversary's wrong, but there it was all the same.
   
It could have been a number of things, really. She had a slimmer build, one built for flight rather than fight. She wasn’t the tallest person around and her funny way of making conversation didn’t always leave the brightest impression before the match got underway.

It was when things actually got rolling that her real strengths shined through and opinions started to change. The Okinawan could use momentum like a bullet, playing the bull-headed Chizuru like a matador draping her red cape. She wasn’t just strong, she was clever. That last bit was what Chizuru was really having trouble with. Blade was dancing around her, making better use of those openings when they came up, countering the clutz of the Wrestle Angels with relative ease. If Chizuru wanted to come out on top of this, she was going to have to be even more clever than her opponent’s razor-sharp instincts.

Those thoughts had to take a back seat for a moment, though. She could hear the rumble of the crowd, the rising tension with her ear against the canvas, and out of the corner of her eye a figure at the nearest turnbuckle. Chizuru may not have been the brightest bulb in the box of Wrestle Angels, but it didn’t take her long to piece things together. This was a big move that Blade was setting up. Big enough to really turn things around here, but also too big to be pulled off this early. If there were going to be times the Suplex Girl needed that cleverness she was talking about, this was definitely one of them.

Chizuru rose slowly, keeping her eyes shut and brows close together, gritting her teeth in a clear expression of unbelievably agonizing pain the likes of which had never been seen. It looked as though the savant was down and out... “Ha ha!” ...and at the last moment sprung to life! With a quick, death-defying dodge to the side, Chizuru would roll underneath the bottom rope and bring herself to the safety of the ring apron. Landing on two feet against the ground, the suplex savant would whip her hair back and pause with a smile to the camera, hopefully in time to catch Bade’s horrific flop to the canvas in the background.

Not that she was ever deliberately setting out to make it a goal of hers, but on a fairly mundane day of T.V. tapings back in W.A., Blade ended up unintentionally making history by scoring the quickest pin-fall win in the federations history. Wrestling aficionados, a.k.a. nerds, will confirm that it took the Aerial Artist exactly 27.32 seconds from when the bell rang to nail a chin-cracking superkick to Mimi Yoshihara before bringing the hammer down in the form of her Blade's Edge aerial finisher. It was her first legit marquee match after being regulated to dark matches in the early onset of her career back when her wrestling name was just...well...her name. Which even the time keeper got wrong that night, announcing her as Kyouku Umehara...Blade really hates the fact that people who research her early career are going to hear her name mispronounced forever.

But people took note of her name after that. And how infamous her finisher had become for ending matches in record time should the stars align and she gets the opportunity to bust it out early. So, in a weird sort of way, Chizuru should kind of be flattered that Blade was willing to risk everything for the chance of ending this match before it even really got into second gear. Not that Blade was actually worried that the perennial goofball was going to suplex her way into an upset win over the high-flying veteran...she was just concerned for Chizu's well being and wanted to end the match before she burned herself out, is all. Yeah...that excuse would work...

Once she was practically in her home environment, standing on the top turnbuckle facing towards the ring, Blade would rocket up both her fists in the air with one wrist crossing the other, her trademark symbol that the crowd mimicked and recognized immediately as the telltale sign before she normally weant leaping through with the greatest of ease and several corkscrew rotations for her Blade's edge finisher. The electricity in the air upgraded to crackling as the rising noise amongst the crowd raised to new-

"Where the hell is she going?..."

Blade's deadpan remark interrupting the moment as her head turned to the side to follow her tumbling opponent scramble to ringside with Blade's arm's still raised in her trademark symbol. Blade cocked a hairy eyebrow down at Chizuru as she tried to piece together what just happened, still perplexed and baffled as to why Chizuru was mugging for the cameraman as if she was no longer in any danger whatsoever. In the end she just shrugged her shoulders and turned to face Chizu, a punkish smirk on her face as she executed an arching backflip in mid-air for a shooting star press targeting the suplex savant. Everyone in front of Chizu, including the cameraman angling his lens upward, averted their wide-eyed gaze and cellphone cameras up and behind the former wrestle angel...